Tales of adventures in quilting, gardening, photography and cooking from the Kingdom of Chiconia

Bee, Myself and I #15

In the home stretch now…

Originally, my plan was for 36 of these lovely hatbox blocks, but I’ve discovered the dratted moths have been at my ‘side and floor’ fabric pieces in a big way, and I have no more fabric to replace them. The quilt will now finish at 30 blocks, 5 across and 6 down. It’s not a bad size, 50 x 60 inches, a good lap quilt or something lovely to hang on the wall. I’ll still have two more to show, next month. Without further ado, then, here are Hatbox blocks 28, 29 and 30.

Before you wonder why I still have two to do, I’ve edited two of them out because I’m not much in love with them any more, at least as part of this series. They were fairly early ones, hatboxes 11 and 12. I’m not sure what I want to do with them, so if anyone out there would like them, let me know – it’s first come, first served. I’ll mail them internationally if necessary. If I get no takers they may evolve into a cushion cover, or perhaps I’ll donate them to someone else’s charity quilt work.

Lynn at Tialys is also making a hatbox quilt wall hanging, but started later and has fewer to make, so she’s finished her blocks and is on to the quilting part. Click through to her blog to have a look at hers, they’re all gorgeous, being made from Liberty fabrics. She’s in a later timezone than I am, so maybe wait a little before you go over there to give her time to get her post up.

Bee, Myself and I is a forum for ‘selfish sewing’; any stitchery which is purely for pleasure and not for anyone else. The original concept belongs to Carla of Granny Maud’s Girl. To find out more, you can click through on either her blog link, or using the button a fair way down in the left hand column.

One more month of block making to go, and then it’ll be time to start quilting and assembling. I’m thinking this’ll be at least partially hand quilted throughout, so it’s going to be a fair while before I’m done 🙂

All lovely – the top orange one is spectacular. I would snap your two ‘rejects’ up if I wasn’t sticking to my Liberty theme. Don’t you want to make this quilt again some time? Couldn’t you keep hold of these to use in a future project or make a couple of cushions to complement the quilt?

Having sort of clarified what I like in the blocks, these two don’t really cut it. The pink is too bright but at the same time too plain compared with all the others, and the light floral is just too pale, it blends into the background too much. I might make cushions if no-one else wants the blocks…

I’m not sure if they were moths or other bugs, but there were definite munch holes. I had starched the fabrics, so maybe that was the problem. A valuable lesson in not leaving starched fabric out of my cedar cupboard long term!

I have heard that starch draws moths–so I don’t use it. And that moths can attack silk as well as wool, so my silk is in cedar.

My sad moth story is of a suit. I was taking an English tailoring class and got waylaid. There was so much more hand sewing than I had expected and it took so much longer than “normal” dressmaking. I set it aside. One day I got it out and the dreaded moths had attacked. Beyond repair. So I never finished nor wore it.

I needed to starch the pieces for the blocks so they were stable enough, especially the bits on the bias, but I didn’t do my usual trick of then shutting them up in plastic ziploc bags.
I have a beautiful light wool tweed pants suit from my office days in Melbourne. It has a couple of moth holes in the arm, and when I look at them I think it’s almost worth learning to do invisible mending, a true dying art… I just can’t bear to throw it out…

Seems like everyone likes that one best! Just two more to go next month, and then I can start laying them out and spending a couple of days squinting at them all trying to decide where they should all be…

It’s funny how we change our minds as a project evolves… I often come back to something that I was pleased with only to think “well, maybe not”, at least, not for this project. Mind you, I also sometimes put things that I am not happy with aside, then really like them when I come back a few months later. But I’m so glad that you have found a home for your two unwanted blocks.
Oh, and bloody moths… it’s so annoying when that happens.

It’s a pain, but not a disaster, as they didn’t munch any finished blocks. One of the few benefits of a long term project is that you have the time to review your work and make changes if necessary, whereas if you rush through the work you can find that later you wish you’d thought longer about it…